Headcrash [Paperback]

Bruce Bethke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

When Jack Burroughs, a brilliant young computer programmer, is given his pink slip, he is offered the opportunity to use his skills for a little industrial espionage. Donning the guise of his online alter ego, Max Kool, Burroughs transforms himself into one of the hippest cybernetic surfers on the InfoBahn. "Bethke has taken the computer industry and thrown it in a blender . . . savagely funny".--"Seattle Weekly".

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bethke's send-up of the cyberpunk genre isn't just hilarious, it's also lots more accurate and insightful than books that take themselves so-o-o seriously. Headcrash is flat-out fun. -- David Brin --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

About the Author

An ex-surfer, ex-rock musician, ex-teacher, and ex-sausage maker, Bruce Bethke now lives a life of quiet bourgeois complacency in suburban Minnesota, where he works in software development for a really, really nice multibillion-dollar multinational company totally unlike the evil and psychotic multibillion-dollar multinational company depicted in this book. Honest. Besides being the accredited creator of the word "cyberpunk," Bethke has written numerous short stories, which have appeared in such magazines as Amazing, Asimov's, Weird Tales, and Easyriders, and more than two hundred computer software books, manuals, and articles. Headcrashis his first novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446673145
• ISBN-13: 978-0446673143
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,161,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A funnier, less complex version of "Snow Crash", July 23, 2000

By 

Tung Yin (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Headcrash (Paperback)

"Headcrash" started out slowly for the first chapter, which was devoted to establishing the nerdy thought processes of the narrator. After that, it kicks into high gear and never lets up.

Set in 2005, the plot is kind of a funny version of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" (without the Sumerian mythology) crossed with Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City," with some doses of William Gibson's "Neuromancer." The narrator works as a tech-nerd at a huge corporate conglomerate, with a horrible boss, gets fired, and is approached to cause some havoc at his former employer's information database.

Much of the novel is set in a virtually real Internet -- and for once, an author writing about virtual reality does NOT resort to the "if you die in here, you die in reality" trick.

Bethke pays homage along the way to an impressive collection of pop culture: "The Godfather," "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Sesame Street," "Brave New World," and "Doom" and other first person shooter games among others. He takes aim at political correctness (there's a law against Ethnic Humor).

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If only Neal Stephenson and Bethke could get together..., January 25, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Moultrie, Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Headcrash (Paperback)

This is the book that Snow Crash should have been. Now, before I am attacked as a heretic, let me say that I'd be the first to admite that Neal Stephenson is a much better writer than Bethke. It's just that Stephenson has a tin ear when it comes to humor, whereas Bethke is spot-on. As good as Stephenson's writing is, I found much of the humor in Snow Crash (which was another attempt at a send-up of the cyberpunk genre) to be slightly funnier than a dumb Saturday Night Live skit. Bethke's parody is much more inspired. It helps to be familiar with the shopworn cliches of cyberpunk before you read this. All the elements of your standard-issue cyberpunk thriller are mercilessly skewered in this book: characters who are so impossibly cool that they have to drink antifreeze, the ritualistic scenes of "suiting up" in incredibly cool cyber-equipment, hopelessly optimistic portrayals of the future of virtual reality, pointless fads of the present extrapolated into earth-shaking trends of the future, and the Incredibly Greedy and Faceless Corporate-Government Cartel that Controls the World. Tom Clancy, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Crichton are also spoofed. Once again, Bethke's writing style is only marginally better than what you'd expect from a bright college sophomore, but it does the job. Now, if only we could have a novel with Stephenson's gifted writing and Bethke's sense of humor, we might really have something.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HeadCrash Won Me With Humor, November 21, 2002

By 

Ben Tague (Macomb, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Headcrash (Mass Market Paperback)

In a massive sea of cyberpunk books that take themselves way too seriously, HeadCrash is a shining example of how humor can turn an ordinary novel into a piece of literature that everyone should read. Bruce Bethke has created a book that is truly engaging for the reader.

One way he accomplished this is through an interesting plot line with numerous twists that kept me constantly on guard. HeadCrash follows the story of :cybergeek" Jack Burroughs; a.k.a. Pyle; a.k.a. MAX_KOOL. The story starts with Jack going through a management shake up at MDE, Monolithic Diversified Enterprises. Later on, after Jack suddenly finds himself in a sticky situation, the reader watches as Jack uses his cyberspace alter ego, MAX_KOOL, and an embarrassing way to interface with the internet, to do a hack job for a mysterious woman known only as Amber. Saying anymore about the plot would lessen the amazing experience that any reader would have reading this book. The engaging plot and Bethke's outrageously funny style of writing made reading this book a truly positive experience.